House of Woo is more of the same, providing soundtracks for chillout rooms where the minds are satisfied and no one can even remember the definition of the word "dour."

Overall, Ores & Minerals is a showcase of the band's strengths that finds an original band settling in and taking their ideas to the next level of clever.

Thirst is stylistically ambitious and often quite successful for a debut album, but while the rest of the ingredients are there, Carter Sharp needs to get his vocals whipped into shape before Waves of Fury can be as nasty as they want to be.

The band's debut for the Innovative Leisure label, forces noisy indie rock, stoner metal, trippy psychedelic pop, and freak folk to sit at the same lunch table, resulting in a spirited yet oh so slightly hesitant food fight that goes just far enough to earn a couple of detentions.

Flowers' best moments are often the loudest, and they sound all the fresher because they're just as inviting as Sin Fang's more intimate music.

Those looking for something more consistent should first check out the exceptional Serial Hodgepodge, but fans of the poppier side of Lusine will find this to be a nice counterpart to A Certain Distance.

The demonic rage of this innovative band approaching 20 years in existence is in top form on these 11 unrelenting songs.

Ultimately, even layers of fuzzy noise and fully saturated weirdness can't obscure the band's hooks or their unique pop perspective.

The washy blend of acoustic dirges, blown-out guitar tones, and lonely psychedelic character sketches solidify into an increasingly accessible sound from this once ungrounded act, without losing any of the group's character or inspiration.

Total Folklore is not for everybody, and the act of playing junkyard synths through scorching feedback is gimmicky by design, but he's successfully found his own niche in noise, and his creativity and determination to reinvent music is worthy of high praise.

Flume's debut certainly fits into a post-2000s club vibe and DJ culture that borrows liberally, and often with inspired aplomb, from cut-and-paste hip-hop, avant-garde electronic composition, ambient pop, and contemporary R&B.

Drawn-in listeners are sure to be rewarded with increased payoffs after multiple listens, but even they may long for the simpler days of "Radar Detector."

We Will Not Harm You does just what it does on the tin, and so much more.

A predilection for brevity and simple pop craftsmanship ultimately tempers their more obstinate tendencies, resulting in a smart, well-executed set of staccato dance-rock anthems that flirt with excess, yet never overstay their welcome.

Not surprisingly, it's the less propulsive numbers that truly resonate on What the Brothers Sang, as Oldham and McCarthy sound less emotionally constricted at a more measured pace, and when they allow their muses to meet, as they do on highlights like "Breakdown," "What Am I Loving For," and the beautiful closer "Kentucky," the results are transcendent.

As a fully realized collaboration, this record sees STRFKR dimming the lights just a little bit and coming into their own more than ever before.

Ford is a rare talent and, for now at least, she's got the right band and seems headed in the right direction, not that Untamed Beast is a transitional album. It's a full-tilt arrival.

All in all, Clash the Truth is exactly the record Beach Fossils should have made at this point, reinforcing all the things that made them good while adding some excellent new wrinkles and boosting the production values.

It delivers some of the most abstract, and most visceral, music in their career.

Much of No World is so slight, tentative, and ill-defined that it easily slips into pleasant background listening for intimate encounters and soul searching.

Granted, Lidell has more of a retro touch than any pop group would dare consider, but these songs are just an AmIdol appearance away from the commercial mainstream.

Iceage have developed a record reaching out in many directions without straining to make any points.

The sonic sea change is deliberate, but given what a vastly musical band the Bad Seeds have always been, this more economical approach is jarring and delightfully unsettling.

While this album's predecessor evidenced his accomplishment in the instrument's creation and operation, The Orchestrion Project reveals that Metheny's possibilities with it have only been tapped.

n. Out of View is an impressive debut but, more than that, it's the sound of shoegaze and early-'90s guitar pop at its best.

Ultimately, Biffy Clyro's gift as a band is to craft songs that balance immediately catchy hooks with complex arrangements that only help to reinforce the drama of the pop moment. Thankfully, there are plenty of these dichotomous yet rapturous moments on Opposites.

Atmospherics and meticulous recording are as important as ever, and while you can take a copy to the stereo shop to make sure that amp sounds rich and warm enough, the album is slightly more song-based than previous efforts, so finicky fans might gripe when the lyrics go quite Depeche Mode or James Blake.

As with the first album things follow a basic title format of band name and number, giving the sense of installations in a larger process. Sometimes that results in things that steer away from re-creation to new inspiration.